Coby introduces five low-priced tablets running Android 4.0

Ever
heard of Coby? No, neither have we,
yet the US-based manufacturer and distributor of a variety of home and
portable
electronics, is set to introduce a handful of low-cost Android
4-powered tablets
in 2012.

"Coby is thrilled to announce our
premiere range of feature-packed Android 4.0-powered Internet tablets
that will
put the world in consumers' hands as never before," said Jodi
Sally, Vice
President of Marketing,
Coby
Electronics. "We also are proud to be
among the first companies to make
available a wide range of the newest, Ice Cream Sandwich-operated
units,
helping to further underscore our commitment to meeting the demands of
a broad
base of consumers with innovative products in the hottest CE categories."

Each tablet will come equipped with a 1GHz
ARM Cortex A8 CPU, a multi-touch screen, up to 1GB of RAM, expandable
memory up
to 32GB, Wi-Fi and HDMI 1080p output. Furthermore, they will be
among the first
tablets to ship with Google’s Android operating system, Android 4.0.

All
tablets will launch in Q1 with prices
ranging from $100-$300.

The iPad has dominated
the tablet market so far, but in 2012, with so many Android tablets set
to launch, things could change quite dramatically as the high price of
Apple's pad begins to look a lot less attractive against cheaper
products that are supported by Android's impressive-looking new operating system.

And while you could argue that many of the lower-priced tablets can't compete
with high-end pads in terms of specifications or the latest in display technology, for what most people
want them to do - surf the web, social-network, play casual games and check emails, many of these Ice Cream Sandwich-equipped devices are going to do exactly what you need them to do.

ARM Cortex is a type of processor / instruction set - like the x86 CPUs that Intel and AMD make. Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 are both based on Cortex designs. RockChip are a chip manufacturer (like AMD / Intel) and they produce chips based on a varity of ARM instructions - most current tablets with RockChip CPUs are ARM11 designs (older than Cortex)

The Cortex A8 in these tablets is on a par with older (2 years+) high-end smartphones like the HTC Desire / Acer Liquid / XPeria X10 / Nexus One - a single core 1GHz processor. It's a fair bit slower than modern phone chips, but still plenty for the kind of web browsing, media playback and casual games that these tablets are designed for. If these come in at something near the £75 they should exchange to, they'd be a decent buy.

scaryjimARM Cortex is a type of processor / instruction set - like the x86 CPUs that Intel and AMD make. Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 are both based on Cortex designs. RockChip are a chip manufacturer (like AMD / Intel) and they produce chips based on a varity of ARM instructions - most current tablets with RockChip CPUs are ARM11 designs (older than Cortex)

The Cortex A8 in these tablets is on a par with older (2 years+) high-end smartphones like the HTC Desire / Acer Liquid / XPeria X10 / Nexus One - a single core 1GHz processor. It's a fair bit slower than modern phone chips, but still plenty for the kind of web browsing, media playback and casual games that these tablets are designed for. If these come in at something near the £75 they should exchange to, they'd be a decent buy.

X10 has an ARM A11 running at 600mhz, the Xperia Mini has an A8 @ 1ghz...but other than that you're about right